Pakistan Deploys Air Defense Weapons to Afghan Border

Posted December 9th, 2011 at 2:45 am (UTC-5)
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A senior Pakistani military officer says the government has deployed air defense weapons on the country's border with Afghanistan, following the NATO airstrikes last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports Major General Ashfaq Nadeem says the new deployment of the border weapons was aimed at preventing “fresh attacks” as Pakistan re-evaluates its strategy for safeguarding its western borders from air raids.

The newspaper says Nadeem briefed the federal cabinet and the Senate's defense committee about the weapons deployment Thursday.

U.S. and Pakistani officials have offered differing initial accounts of what happened at the Pakistani posts near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistani military officials have said the attack was unprovoked and deliberate, an accusation U.S. officials have rejected.

NATO helicopter gunships and jet fighters based in Afghanistan are said to have fired on two Pakistani military posts in the Mohmand region near the Afghan border on November 26.

Public anger in Pakistan over the killings is high. Islamabad has ordered the United States to vacate a Pakistan airbase it uses, and has indefinitely closed the two main overland routes NATO uses to send nonlethal supplies to Afghanistan.

The U.S. military and NATO have launched an investigation into the incident.